Gold mining in the Russian Far East
Gold mining in the Russian Far East. Today’s Image of the Day from NASA Earth Observatory features the Central Aldan ore district in the Russian Far East, where gold mining operations are large enough to be seen from space.
Even though gold has been found on almost every continent, it is still quite rare. According to NASA, gold accounts for just one out of every billion atoms in Earth’s crust.
The photograph shows part of the ore district in the Republic of Sakha about 25 kilometers northwest of the gold-mining town of Aldan, which is one of Russia’s largest gold ore districts.
Discovered in 1947, the Kuranakh gold deposit is positioned between Cambrian limestone and Jurassic sandstone. In 2019, the Kuranakh mine produced 224,700 ounces of refined gold.
The Russian Far East (Russian: Дальний Восток России, tr. Dal’niy Vostok Rossii, IPA: , literally “The far East of Russia”) is a region in North Asia which includes the Far Eastern Federal District, the easternmost territory of Russia, between Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia and the Pacific Ocean.
The Far Eastern Federal District shares land borders with Mongolia, China and North Korea to its south, and shares maritime borders with Japan to its southeast and with the United States to its northeast.
Although commonly considered part of Siberia abroad, the Russian Far East is categorized separately from Siberia in Russian regional schemes (and previously during the Soviet era when it was called the Soviet Far East).
The image was captured on September 11, 2019 by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8.
Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer
